[Janet]

I promise this will be my last. I just kept these things as a reminder to myself, but now with a parenting forum, I just wanted to share.

The tomatoes were my husband's idea. I had a child, a dog, a job, and a home to worry about. When my husband, came home with two boxes of wilting tomato plants, I vowed I'd have nothing to do with them.

"I'll take care of them," my husband assured me.

A week later the plants, limp and looking sick, still sat in their original boxes. If they weren't planted soon, there would be no saving them. More than a little annoyed, I trudged to the back yard with tomato plants, watering can, spade, and hoe---followed close behind by a little boy and his big playful dog.

As I hoed the hard dirt and stuffed the sagging yellow plants into the shallow trenches, my annoyance grew. The dog kept running through the newly planted tomatoes, and our four year old son, was shoveling dirt into his hair and pouring water into his shoes.

Scowling at my son, I was ready to tell him to stop making a mess.

But before I could say anything, he asked, "Aren't we having fun, Mommy?"

Suddenly, I saw life from his perspective. It made me think. Was I stuck doing a job my husband had promised to do? Or was I helping him do something he didn't have time for?

Was I laboring in the hot sun? Or was I planting something in God's rich earth and helping it grow? Was my son making a mess? Or was he experiencing soil and water and the beauty of a bright spring day. Was he really getting in my way? Or were we sharing a job well done and having fun together?

It's all a matter of perspective.